


Force

by silentdescant



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Injuries, Pre-Stanford
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 01:42:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1180411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentdescant/pseuds/silentdescant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s Dean’s modus operandi to mask his reactions, hide what he feels from his brother, but sometimes… things slip through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Force

**Author's Note:**

> Another daily writing exercise.

It’s Dean’s modus operandi to mask his reactions, hide what he feels from his brother, but sometimes… things slip through. Like whenever Dean’s ill or severely injured, in some state of exhaustion or delirium, his face shows everything that goes through his mind. Especially when it’s about how much things fucking hurt.

When Dean’s twenty-one and full of all kinds of confidence and delusions of invincibility, he goes up against a man twice his size in a bar fight and loses. His dad rolls his eyes and shakes his head; he’s more disappointed that Dean lost the fight than that he was fighting at all. He pulls Dean up by the collar of his jacket when Dean hits the pavement outside the bar, and he shoves Dean in front of him, walks him all the way back to the hotel like a goddamn humiliation parade.

Sam’s waiting for them in the room, squashed sideways into an armchair with his long legs tangled and dangling over the arm. It hardly looks comfortable, but Sam’s a weird kid. He barely looks up from his book as they walk in, Dean grimacing and ducking out of the way of Dad’s hand, aiming to shove him forward again.

“Cool off,” Dad grumbles. “I’m tired of cleaning up your damn messes, Dean.”

He leaves again, probably to search out the witness Dean’s bar fight scared away. Sam goes back to his book without a word.

Dean collapses heavily onto his bed, cradling his sore arm and groaning as quietly as he possibly can. Even his ass his bruised from landing so hard in the parking lot when he was thrown out. He tries to lie down, but every way he moves, a shooting pain in his shoulder makes itself known. The arm itself is starting to feel like a numb, dead weight. He wiggles his fingers and they tingle.

“Fuck,” he mutters.

“What’d you do this time?” Sam asks. He’s just turned seventeen and he’s all the bitchier for it. He keeps making threats about college, saying shit about how he’s gonna go off and be independent for once. Dean doesn’t believe a word of it. Sam’s a Winchester; he’s too loyal to leave.

Dean plasters on a smirk, even though he doesn’t think Sam can see his face. “Some guy thought he could hustle me, but you know me, Sammy. Ain’t nobody can hustle a hustler.”

He rolls on his side, then back up to a sit. He feels completely battered, and the numbness in his arm isn’t helping matters. He doesn’t know what shows on his face, but apparently something does, because Sam’s at his side in seconds, gently probing his fingers against Dean’s ribs. They’re sore, so Dean grunts and bats Sam’s hand away, but Sam is insistent.

“Where are you hurt?” he asks, intent on searching Dean’s body for injuries. He’s as thorough as Dean taught him to be, which is to say, very. When his fingers close around Dean’s upper arm, Dean’s expression must give him away, because Sam says, “Did you dislocate your fucking shoulder?”

Dean vividly remembers his arm being twisted up behind his back, and he remembers it hurting a fucking lot, but surely he’d remember his arm being wrenched out of its socket. He answers with a scoff.

“Stand up,” Sam orders, sounding strangely like their father. He gets Dean bent over slightly, braced with his good hand on the back of the armchair, then fits himself behind him, leaning over Dean with one hand braced against Dean’s back and the other grasping his shoulder firmly.

Dean wants to argue, but instead he grits his teeth and fixates on a stain on the wallpaper.

Sam doesn’t even give him a count, just wrenches Dean’s arm back into place with a sharp grunt of effort. There’s a bright white flash of pain and a rush of feeling back into Dean’s fingertips, and the ache eases in moments, but he still curses up a storm and has to walk off the shock of it.

Sam watches him calmly, surely taking in the hurt twist of Dean’s lips and the tightness around his eyes. After a few moments, probably making sure Dean’s actually alright, Sam picks up his book and folds himself back into the armchair as if nothing had happened.

“Maybe next time, avoid the bar fight.”

Dean rolls his eyes. Like that’ll ever happen. He busies himself changing out of his clothes and stashing all his weapons and finally settles into bed only to find Sam watching him.

“What?” he asks.

“I worry about you, you know,” Sam tells him.

Dean’s lip tugs upward in confusion and disbelief, and maybe a little bit denial.

“You hide everything,” Sam explains, “and one day, you’re not gonna tell anyone you’re hurting, and you’re gonna die from it.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Just promise you’ll tell me, okay?” Sam gestures to Dean’s arm, which is still a little tender. “I’ll fix it.”

Dean doesn’t reply, but Sam’s words stick with him for a long time to come. He finds himself wondering, so many years later, when the threat of the apocalypse hangs over them, if Sam could actually fix everything like he fixed Dean’s arm: by sheer force.

 

 _fin_.


End file.
